If you are a UK subscriber you might have received this magazine just prior to the world-famous Salute; if not it will just have happened. Either way, there has been a big buzz about this year’s premier wargaming event. After 2022’s damp squib and 2023’s non-appearance, it has felt like the UK wargames scene has been really ‘up for’ the return of a bumper, all guns blazing Salute. You can look forward to coverage of the show in the next issue of the magazine, but with this month’s issue, you may have had the unexpected pleasure of receiving a Warlord Games Black Seas 3rd Rate Ship. These models have been exclusively available with copies of Wi purchased in Sainsbury’s and Tesco (we also siphoned off a few for Salute).

Exclusive store deals run the risk of alienating those readers who have not been able to capitalise by getting their hands on copies of the magazine from participating stores – clearly, a free ship on a magazine in Tesco Extra, England, is not much good if you live in Texas, Coober Pedy, or the Amazon Basin – in much the same way that even though I eat pizza, a two-for-one pizza offer in New York is of little use to me! However (just to pull back the velvet curtain of the publishing industry aside for a moment), store exclusive deals are a great way of us promoting new/different outlets, letting potential readers know that there are more places they can purchase their copies of Wi from than they might realise. In the UK, highlighting the sale of the magazine in Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores is also a good way of tempting people away from purchasing in WH Smith. Although Wargames Illustrated has been on sale in WH Smith since 1987, the ever-rising costs they charge for the pleasure of selling our magazine means that we are now looking to direct UK readers to alternative stockists. This month’s ship bagged with copies in Tesco and Sainsbury’s, that being the proverbial carrot!

Away from all that talk about stockists and ships, I should also mention this month’s theme – Cowboys! You’re in for a rootin’-tootin’ time reading all about What a Cowboy!, Dead Man’s Hand, and what the Wild West was really like in this issue.